Here we have before us the outcome, finally, not only of crass materialism which holds the world to be just a bundle of solid objects, but also of the rarified form of the materialist doctrine, scientific in its nature. The scientific aspect of materialism also cannot stand as long as the nature of matter is not properly defined. There is no use jumping from one concept to another concept of matter, only to escape the difficulties of an earlier conclusion. The bogey of matter being something outside consciousness cannot leave us; it pursues us wherever we go. The outsideness of anything that is material is the special feature of whatever we can call material, and anything that is wholly outside cannot be absorbed or accommodated into a conscious, knowing subject. Therefore there is no chance of the final success of the materialist doctrine, on the one hand due to its inability to explain how matter is known unless there is a knowing subject, and on the other hand its being dangerously near the most unexpected conclusion that matter is potentially consciousness. Neither of these aspects can be accepted by a materialist, but there is no third alternative. Either way we find that there is something more about things than what they seem to be presenting to us on superficial perception.

The difficulties envisaged in the acceptance of a wholly materialist doctrine has pressed itself into the minds of people through human history to such an extent that it has become difficult to cling to it entirely, and man has slowly risen to the acceptance of values which are non-material—such as goodness, affection, a spirit of cooperation, servicefulness, the presence of duty, and a sense of purposefulness in existence, which we cannot deny, but none of which can we attribute to matter. We cannot say that there can be some matter which is good, some matter which is bad, that there can be beautiful matter or ugly matter, cooperative matter or non-cooperative matter, serviceful matter or non-serviceful matter. Anything that we consider as humanly meaningful in our existence does not seem to be a characteristic of matter. Material existence does not seem to be the whole of life, because we see values in life, and today we have risen to the level of the acceptance of there being such things as human values. The adamant affirmation of the crass materialist is slowly giving way to a humanistic consideration of values. We speak of humanity very often these days. We work for the peace of the world, in the sense of the peace of mankind. There is a series of forums we set up for international well-being, all which mean well-being of human beings. Human values are considered as final values. The survival of humanity is the aim of all our pursuits—man is final, the last word in creation. If only something could contribute to the survival of man, that would be taken as the final assessment of the situation, and everything else can be ignored. Anything can be sacrificed for the survival of man, whatever it is. We have no hesitation in accepting this view. If something endangers the life of a human being, even if that also be a kind of living being, like an animal, that would not be our consideration. A human vision of life has taken possession of us to such an extent that we cannot any more accept that there can be anything in this world more than man.

But this so-called humanistic view is as shaky in its foundation as the reasons we saw for the untenability of a finale in the materialistic doctrine. The flaw in materialism is obvious. We can describe and decipher such an obvious flaw in this commonly accepted universally deified vision of man being everything. Man is the centre of all values. Now what do we say to this? Can we say that man is the centre of all values? It is certainly necessary for us to survive, and we have to move earth and heaven to see that we somehow exist in this world—this is to be accepted for obvious reasons. It is not good to invite death and annihilation or the abolition of life. So there is an instinctiveness to see that we survive somehow or other, by hook or by crook, by any means that can be adopted, even by the destruction of others which are not human. But, as we had an occasion to observe previously, even human nature has degrees; perhaps there are categories of human nature. And when we are pressed into a corner, if we hold on to this concept of humanity as the final value, we may not even hesitate to sacrifice lesser humanity for what we consider as a more valuable category of humanity. This possibility is very shocking, surprising and difficult to swallow, but it is something we see before our eyes—human beings being sacrificed legally, officially and necessarily for national welfare or human welfare, you may say, the welfare of all people. The welfare of people may require the sacrifice of people, especially in contingencies like wars where human beings are sacrificed, and no soldier goes to the field of battle with a conviction that all soldiers will be alive and they will return hale and hearty. A spirit of sacrifice of one’s own life is involved in any kind of adventure of this type, but this adventure is embarked upon for the welfare of people. So some people should die for the sake of some other people to be alive.

This takes us to a serious consideration of what human life itself is. Does it mean that fifty percent of people have to die for another fifty percent to be alive? Certainly we say no, that this is not our intention. We want humanity to be alive. The life of humanity is our intention, and not merely the lives of fifty percent of humanity, though mathematically fifty percent of the people may die in a big, tragic war. God forbid that may take place, nevertheless we say it is a worthwhile adventure for the survival of humanity—mankind. Mankind has survived; it has won a victory in war, but it has won the victory through the destruction of fifty percent of its human brethren.

The concept of humanism is full of difficulties to entertain because we do not know what we actually mean by humanity, mankind, for which we are struggling. In everyday life we are guarding ourselves and are ready to fight tooth and nail against people for whose welfare we are girding up our loins day in and day out. Everyone is stirred with the spirit of social service. “I have dedicated myself for the welfare of people.” This spirit is considered as most noble, worthwhile, and nothing can be higher than this spirit of the wish to offer oneself entirely for the welfare of people. Who are the people? The human beings living in the world. And who are we afraid of? Human beings living in the world. Why are we manufacturing ammunition, setting up armies and police and courts of law? Because we are afraid of people. Whom are we serving? People. Who are we afraid of? People. What sort of people are we afraid of? Are we intent upon sacrificing our life for the service of people whom we hate, whom we dread? Or are we serving or intending to serve and sacrifice ourselves for the welfare of those who are not likely to cause us fear? We will not be able to suddenly give an answer to this question, because even those people whom we dread are human beings equally as those others to whom we are affectionate.

Now, when we conceive humanity as an object of deification, finally—humanism as a final philosophy—we will realise that the very definition of mankind or humanity would require a new definition altogether, as we found that the concept of matter requires a new definition. It is not that we are living in a purely material world, and it is also not true that we are living in a purely human world. It is so because our values—ethical, legal, moral, social—do not seem to be confined to individualities which are what we call human beings. A principle of justice, a position that can be taken entirely from a legal point of view, may not consider the value of an individual. If the individual, whatever be that individual, whoever that be, is as sacred, as important, as meaningful as anybody else, there would not be any chance of imprisoning an individual or meting out punishment to an individual for the welfare of people. The welfare of people requires punishment to be meted out to some people. That means to say, the people to whom punishment is meted out are not people. Why? They are certainly people. But the legal procedure, or the social norm, or the moral tradition which requires certain attitudes to a section of people, which cannot be regarded as a universally applicable principle to all beings, takes us beyond the concept of individuality. Perhaps we are thinking of the welfare of people in a sense that is not limited to individual human beings at all, because if humanity, mankind, human nature is to be limited to human individuals, then we cannot have any system of adjudication in a judicial nature, a legal form, much less any kind of meting out of punishment.

There is a value which we entertain in our minds that is superhuman. There is a conceptual entertainment of the meaning of life, rather than a physical or even a humanitarian concept of it, if humanity is to be limited to only a vision of individuals existing isolated from one another. The world of nature has not cared for individuals. History has not paid any special attention to individuals, but it has stood for principles which are more than individual. It has stood for nations and it has stood for the world welfare in a sense totally different from the welfare of individuals. The justice of a cause may require the sacrifice of an individual, not withstanding the fact than the individual is as much a human being as any other human being for whose welfare this attitude is adopted towards a particular individual.

All this takes us into deeper philosophical concepts of justice, legal operation, ethical conduct and moral values. We do not live in a material world. We also do not live in a human world. Because values are not to be identified with matter, they cannot also be identified with any individual human being. They surpass the units of matter, and they seem to be superceding even human beings as individuals. We cannot always find time to think along these lines—in the manner of a generalisation of principles—and we seem to be mixing up the individual with a principle in our daily life, the sin with the sinner as they say, and feel not always competent to distinguish between the embodiment of the principle and the principle itself. A human being enshrines a principle, no doubt, but the human being, as a physical embodiment or a social unit, is not always identified with the principle as such. Sometimes we dislike a person, though that person is a human being. As people devoted to the welfare of human beings, we cannot dislike any human being, nor can we excessively like any human being. But the likes and dislikes arising out of considerations which are either judicial, legal, social, moral, or whatever they be, seem to be justifying our attitude, and this justification can be there only if it is rooted in some vision of life which is not limited to any particular individual, much less to material objects.

The goodness of a person or the badness of a person does not make a person less than human. Our idea of a human being should be clear in our minds first. A bad human being is also a human being; a good human being is also a human being. We make a distinction among human beings, simultaneously with our avowed spirit of surrender to the welfare of people in general. There is a mix-up of values—love and hate come together like two waves dashing one over the other in a sea. Difficulties arise on account of our not being able to extract the principle of life, the spirit of living in general, from the individualities which are human beings.

The philosophy of humanism therefore is full of flaws. It cannot stand finally, as materialism cannot stand. So an overemphasis on what we consider today as the welfare of humanity and the service of people may not be more than a kind of slogan or a shibboleth which assumes a divine character because of a total misconstruction of its true meaning. It cannot stand on its own legs if we probe into the secret of our very thoughts which are associated with the concept of humanity. Humanism is great, life in the physical world is great; but there is something more than life involved in physical matter and life involved in a purely human concept of living, limiting human nature to individual human beings. The idea of humanity is a very intriguing concept and we take everything for granted, as if everything is clear to us and fine, so we can go headlong along the line of the action that we are trying to take for fulfilling our ambition, humanitarian in its nature.

No one can love humanity truly, unless he is superhuman. A person who is only human cannot have a real understanding of what humanity is, because a person who is only human, nothing more, is limited to whatever constitutes human nature; and inasmuch as every human individual is limited to a physical encasement, there is a possibility of a human being becoming selfish and on occasions trying to ignore the existence of other people and limiting oneself to oneself only. The possibility of reverting to one’s own self entirely in a selfish manner, even in the consideration of bodily existence, cannot be completely discarded because every human being is, after all, an isolated entity, one cut off from the other. To take a total view of humanity as a whole, and even to be correctly conscious of the nature of humanity without getting into the muddle of the dichotomy between principles and individuals, one has to be something a little more than human.

A superhuman element seems to be embedded, unconsciously though, in all human considerations, even as there was an unwitting acceptance, forced against one’s own will, of the presence of a peculiar element called self-consciousness, even in the body of matter when we considered materialism. We find that humanity involves something that is more than humanity. The philosophy of materialism and the philosophy of humanism finally fall if they are to consider themselves as self-complete in themselves. If matter is all and nothing more than matter is, if man is all and nothing more than man is, neither humanism can stand, nor materialism can stand.

Considering these problems, being fully aware that there is some basic difficulty in the acceptance of either crass materialism or socialistic humanism, psychologists took a new turn altogether and adumbrated a vision of life which took into consideration the mind of man rather than the individuality of man or his physical environment. This standpoint, which is other than the standpoint of materialism or the viewpoint of pure humanism, is psychological, or perhaps we may say psychoanalytical. These considerations, which have been engaging our attention during these few minutes, land us finally in the presence of something that is called ‘mind’, a thinking process which is other than a body of matter or even a physically conceived human individual.

All values seem to be psychological, mental and inward. Hence all values, though they appear to be physical on the one side and human on the other side, seem to be psychological, essential; and the vision of life presented by psychology and psychoanalysis takes us deeper into the inner contents of human nature, the very perceiving individual, the subject thereof—a point of view we shall try to discuss next.